Artist Biography
Rachel Simmons is an American artist-educator who teaches foundations, printmaking and book arts at Rollins College, an innovative liberal arts institution in Winter Park, Florida. She began her teaching career after earning her MFA in Painting & Drawing from Louisiana State University. Rachel specializes in book arts & printmaking, and her diverse studio practice is informed by environmental activism, and exploration of language and personal narratives. In her socially engaged art projects, Rachel asks community participants to think critically and creatively about our relationship with nature. Endlessly curious about the natural world and our relationship with it, Rachel often collaborates with scholars from other academic disciplines and communities to create new work.
Description of Process
This first print in the series began as I was putting away loads of wood type after a class demo. Jumbled letters on a galley almost spelled “Empress”, a word which immediately intrigued me. As I gathered more type, other words emerged until I had the phrase FREEDOM EMPRESS OVER BARREN GOLDEN COURTS. My found object/collage approach to writing has its origins in working with erasure poetry for many years. The printing process involved running pressure plates under each sheet to purposely disrupt the impression, and layering shifted transparent color runs across Thai kozo paper. Back in my home studio, I cut some of the prints apart and layered them vertically to further disrupt and rebuild the text.
